Hosea 14:2-10 / Mark 12:28-34
We address God with very transcendent and lofty names and it is only rightly so, names like "Almighty and ever living God", "Lord God of hosts".
We use these names for God and we must also understand what they stand for otherwise those names will be devoid and empty of meaning.
In the 1st reading, we heard the Lord telling His people: Provide yourself with words and come back to me.
But the words that we use should also express our faith and our belief in who God is.
God is the God of power and might but He portrayed Himself as a God of tender love and compassion, always forgiving and going even to the extent of pleading for His people to return to Him.
We see this when we hear God saying this in the 1st reading: I will love them with all my heart; I will fall like dew on Israel; I hear his prayer and care for him.
Indeed, God is love and we may not be able to fully understand the length and breadth, height and depth of what it means to say that God is love.
But in the gospel, Jesus puts that meaning in very practical and understandable terms - you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And you must love your neighbour as yourself.
We must also remember that it is God who gave those two commandments and He would have fulfilled it first by loving us with all His heart, with all His mind and with all His strength before asking us to do it in return.
When we understand that God is love, we will understand the names that we use to address God. And though we may not understand it absolutely, we are surely on the way to the kingdom of God.